Coach Williams says Tar Heels in full stride

Thursday

Mar 20, 2014 at 9:05 PM

SAN ANTONIO — While this hasn’t been a smooth road to the NCAA Tournament and a date with the Friars for Roy Williams and the North Carolina Tar Heels, he says his team is ready for another successful...

Kevin McNamara Journal Sports Writer kevinmcnamara33

SAN ANTONIO — While this hasn’t been a smooth road to the NCAA Tournament and a date with the Friars for Roy Williams and the North Carolina Tar Heels, he says his team is ready for another successful postseason.

Williams has dealt with suspensions, injuries and the loss of perhaps his best player, P.J. Hairston, to NCAA eligibility issues. He’s also seen an up-and-down team that suffered some tough early-season losses, won 12 straight ACC games and then lost its two games entering the NCAAs. Even so, Williams said Thursday that the team has been a fun one to coach.

“A frustrating group to coach? Oh my gosh, no,” he answered. “All the bull around it has been frustrating. It’s been a marvelous group. If it hadn’t been for my team, I would have jumped off the top of the building. My team is the one that was the savior throughout the whole season, and since the offseason. It’s been a tough time around Chapel Hill.”

One of the tougher problems to develop this season for Williams was the December arrest of former UNC basketball player Will Graves. He is facing drug charges in Chapel Hill after an arrest at a property owned by Williams. According to an arrest report, Graves was charged with one count of possession of marijuana and one count of drug paraphernalia.

Williams said on the court that his team simply needs to play harder. He’s hoping the NCAA stage brings that out in his players.

“I think that in the game of basketball, if you don’t have a sense of urgency, there is a great chance that you still may not win, but you have no chance if you don’t,” he said. “I do think the kids understand that even more now after the last two games, after the last two weeks. Technically we’ve got to rebound. We’ve got to run. We’ve got to defend. We’ve got to do all those things. But I think it’s just the passion. You have to have more passion now, and I think they understand that.”

Bullock kept out

PC chose not to bring suspended freshman Rodney Bullock to the AT&T Center for a 40-minute shoot-around and meet-and-greet with the media Thursday afternoon. Bullock is with the team in San Antonio and has traveled with the team to the majority of its road games even though he was suspended for the season in December due to a violation of the school’s Code of Conduct.

News broke this week that the Providence police were investigating a claim of sexual assault against Bullock made by a female PC student. Bullock has not spoken with the media about his suspension and it was clear that the school did not want media to approach Bullock in advance of the team’s NCAA Tournament game. NCAA rules specify that all active players are made available to the media only during press conferences.

PC says APR to rise

Providence College is disputing a study by the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport that said the Friars and seven other teams in the NCAA Tournament fall below the NCAA-mandated Academic Progress Rate score of 930, which is equivalent to a 50-percent graduation rate. Teams scoring below a 925 APR can lose up to 10 percent of their scholarships and even worse scores can prevent schools from appearing in the NCAAs.

Providence scored a 915 in its most recent reporting period, joining teams such as Cal Poly (925), Coastal Carolina (921), North Carolina Central (903), Oklahoma State (928), Texas Southern (900), Connecticut (897) and Oregon (918). But in an on-line letter to “Friars fans, supporters, alumni and friends,” athletic director Bob Driscoll sought to clarify some ‘misrepresentations’ in the report.

Driscoll points out that while the 915 score for 2011-12 is below the cut line, the Friars are not in danger of any NCAA restrictions. The NCAA is using a standard in the future by which teams must earn a 930 four-year average APR or a 940 average over the most recent two years to participate in championships.

Driscoll writes that PC’s projected score in the next reporting period will be 947, but that won’t be released until June. Cooley inherited a challenged APR situation from previous coach Keno Davis due to a host of roster defections from academic and disciplinary cases that led to the recent 915 APR score.

Friars top TV ratings

Two numerical notes of note:

PC’s Big East championship win over Creighton delivered 702,000 viewers on Fox Sports 1 making it the most-watched college basketball game ever on the network since it launched last fall. Fox Sports 1’s biggest college basketball audience before the Big East tournament was Michigan State-Georgetown on Feb. 1, which drew 539,000 viewers.

Also, Forbes media released its 2014 list of college basketball’s Most Valuable Teams recently. National champion Louisville took the top spot at $39.5 million, but North Carolina came in fourth at $25.7 million. The report claimed the program produced a profit of $14.8 million.

Pause that refreshes

Much is made of PC’s lack of depth and rest has certainly been a great equalizer for the Friars. PC is 13-5 with three or more days of rest. Cotton, of course, leads the nation in minutes played at 39, but LaDontae Henton (37.1), Josh Fortune (33.1) and Tyler Harris (32.0) have all averaged a very big load.

Keeping Kadeem Batts and Carson Desrosiers on the court has been a challenge for Cooley as both players see their fair share of foul calls. During three Big East tourney games, Henton (40), Fortune (39) and Cotton (38) all averaged big minutes, but Batts was limited to 25.3 and Desrosiers 16.7 due to foul trouble.

North Carolina has just two players who average 30 or more minutes in point guard Marcus Paige (35.6) and forward James Michael McAdoo (30.1).

Barring some deep foul trouble, Cooley doesn’t expect to go to his bench very much besides the Batts-Desrosiers tandem. That fact is especially true with Cotton.

“We never think of taking him out of the basketball game, ever,” Cooley said. “With the timeouts that we’re allowed, we use the timeouts, the long TV timeouts. At the end of the day, what kids do really want to come out? They don’t want to come out. I told them come out when you retire. Other than that, don’t look at the bench because you’re not coming out.”

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